Absorbent personal care articles such as sanitary napkins and pads, panty liners, adult incontinence garments and pads, baby and child care diapers and pants, commonly utilize a layered structure construction to direct and collect body exudates, as well as to configure the article for a comfortable fit adjacent a user's body.
The manufacturers of these articles have developed numerous structural features to address problems of leakage. Such structures may define openings in upper layers to allow body exudates to pass directly to lower absorbent core layers after initial fluid deposition, such as from a user's genital or anal regions. Such openings, apertures or recesses in absorbent articles are described for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,345 to Reising and U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,798 to Finch et al.; U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,241,714 and 6,984,225 to Aschenbrenner, and JP2006-51211. While such openings have proven somewhat effective for collecting fluid in a well-like structure, and for directing exudates to deeper article locations, leakage continues to be a problem with these articles. Further, manufacturing constraints and material costs have often prevented usage of these features with other desirable absorbent article topographical structures. Additionally, use of layers with openings has led to manufacturing material waste, as such layers by necessity, have unused center portions. There is a need for articles with such features, with improved leakage protection, that reduce manufacturing-material waste, and that also allow for the introduction of other article topographical structures.
Such desirable topographical features include raised components or hump-like elements, to enhance an article's close-to-body fit, such as for example, those humps described in JP2006-239162, and GB 2370780 to Aschenbrenner. Such hump-like features have been described in multiple shapes, depending on article configuration. It has been found that such hump features 1) elevate portions of an absorbent article to a position closer to a fluid deposition region, 2) provide controls on how the article might bend or turn when in use (as an article shaping layer/element), and also 3) provide a stabilizing or rigidifying element, such as a slide-prevention element for certain articles when the hump is positioned under certain regions of a user's body. Such element could help retain for example, an absorbent article positioned between the buttocks of a user during sleep. These layered structures are often produced inefficiently from different types of materials than the rest of the article layers, adding to overall article costs. There is therefore a continued need for absorbent articles with efficiently constructed topographical features, such as humps.
Further, while different layer structures have been developed by manufacturers to facilitate rapid absorbency, or improved fit, such as shaping layers, these structures often result in material waste during the manufacturing process, as excess material is often unable to be used after the structure is cut from a material base sheet, and such excess material is subsequently discarded. While numerous techniques have been developed for conserving manufacturing base sheet material during an article's manufacture, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,171,432 to Brisebois et al., such techniques and methods have focused on use of continuous, side-by-side strips of material for placement in absorbent articles. Thus, there exists a need for an absorbent personal care article having a layered structure with multiple topographical features, and which is manufactured with reduced material waste.
Absorbent articles, such as sanitary napkins have been previously described to include both a hump and groove structure. Such combination of features is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,619 to Chen, which details the hump, as a projecting and relatively narrow “stop element”, for the purposes of holding a feminine care product in the coccyx area of a user in order to absorb menstrual discharge. The paired, relatively narrow groove element described in the Chen reference, is included for the sole purpose of holding the hump, when the article is stored in a folded configuration, such that the article is retained in a flat, folded orientation, while not in use. The stop element is described as being formed integrally from the absorbent body structure, such that its construction and material properties are limited by the material of the absorbent body structure. Therefore, a continued need exists for an absorbent article which offers multiple topographical features, and which is not limited by the material properties of other absorbent layer structures.